Calais, France: A political victory for the Calais 8

By: dolph-l - April 3rd, 2016  Filed under: Communique, News

On Friday,  when the judge at Boulogne-sur-mer announced, three times that the trial of 8 friends was irregular the court room erupted into applause and cheering. Waiting outside were a brace of Police de l’Air et des Frontières (PAF) waiting to take 5 of them (the foreigners) to detention after they had been served with Obligation de Quitter la Territoire Français (OQTF). But these had already escaped and were not present to appreciate the announcement of their victory.

The judges had decided that there were too many irregularities and that the authorities had not followed procedure when arresting and detaining the 8 people on the roof of an abandoned building in the centre of Calais on Sunday the 27th April.

[Read More]

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Calais: Update on trial and call for solidarity

By: dolph-l - March 31st, 2016  Filed under: News

An update on the court case of the 8 friends arrested for squatting an empty homeless shelter in Calais.

Today, the trial scheduled to take place  at the court in Boulogne-sur-Mer was postponed until Friday, April 1. All 8 had accepted to be tried today,  under the comparution immediate (fast track procedure).

Yesterday, after spending 48 hours in police custody, 3 friends were released until the trial and 5 kept in preventive detention to ensure that they would come to court. However, 3 of those in prison were not able to be transported to appear in person before the court. This was due to an apparent lack of organisation of transport from the prison to the court. [Read More]

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Calais (France): Newly opened squat evicted

By: xxx - March 27th, 2016  Filed under: News

A recently squatted building was publicly opened this morning in Calais, on rue des Prêtres. The building was an abandoned homeless shelter capable of accommodating at least 50 people. People started gathering outside the building around 11 o’clock this morning in support of the people already barricaded inside. A neighbour-collaborator called the cops, even going as far as to offer them a hand when they arrived. By around 2.00 some 12 vans of riot cops had the building surrounded, and those inside had already climbed up on the roof. Around 4.30, they started pushing away the people outside and smashing down the front door of the house with a battering ram. The deputy mayor of Calais who’s name isn’t important enough to publish was holding the battering ram together with the riot cops. Not managing to break down the door, they smashed in a window and opened the front door from the inside. [Read More]

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Calais (France): New Occupation

By: xxx - March 27th, 2016  Filed under: News

For years, the government and the prefecture of Calais have been destroying living places. For years, people in Calais have been assaulted by police and fascists and have had their belongings destroyed . For years, people are forced to live in fear and insecurity because they are foreigners. [Read More]

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Notre-Dame-Des-Landes (France): Communique on the meeting with the Calais hunger strikes

By: dolph-l - March 24th, 2016  Filed under: News

This Wednesday 23rd March, four 2012 hunger strikers from Nantes, accompanied by four activists, met with the Calais hunger strikers. Here is their testimony:

“We are here in support, in sympathy, in bringing our experiences, but certainly not to bring advise.

Compared to theirs, our experiences were very light: they have been on hunger strike since March 2nd, isolated in the southern part of the jungle that was destroyed, with a background noise of bulldozers flattening rubble, and the polce that surround them. [Read More]

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Notre-Dame-Des-Landes to Calais: Call-out for decentralised actions against the Socialist Party

By: dolph-l - March 22nd, 2016  Filed under: News

The weekend of 26th to 27th March, a call-out for decentralised actions against the Socialist Party was launched by the anti-airport movement.

Come to Calais, it’s possible to link these struggles. It’s why we invite you to reach Calais from Friday 25th March. There is no housing infrastructure, come with your own plan for sleeping, duvets, tents, supplies, etc… Be as autonomous as possible. There are some not too expensive restaurants in the jungle, put in place by refugees. Camp water isn’t drinkable. Bring what you need. It’s possible to reach the town centre by bus. If needed, an on-site telephone number : 07.51.02.17.33 and the legal number 07.51.55.72.54. [Read More]

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Toulouse (France): Call for 10 days of People’s self-defense

By: xxx - March 20th, 2016  Filed under: Communique, News

From Friday 15th to Sunday 24th April 2016 @ the self-managed social center in Toulouse (C.S.A)

For almost 5 years now, we, members of the CREA (Campagne de Réquisition, d’Entraide et d’Autogestion ; meaning : Requisition, Mutual Aid and Self-managing campaign) [occupy] private and public empties for housing, organising and living regarding to our own needs and with our own ressources. We refuse to watch a city change according to rich people desires and see financial interests wage war to poor people. Since the very beginning of our campaign, We oppose the speculative logic of misery organised by the authorities in charge and by capitalism because We aim for living in dignity ; and, as could be expected, We suffer a repression which only increases every year. [Read More]

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Marseille, France: Week of action in solidarity with eviction resistance in the Calais jungle

By: dolph-l - March 17th, 2016  Filed under: Communique

Following the recent evictions in Calais, a week of action in solidarity with the resistance of the ’’jungle’’ took place in Marseille. The various actions contained in this communique were anonymously contributed by numerous individuals and groups. All the targets chosen collaborate in the repression, subjugation and deportation of migrant and/or paperless people in Calais and elsewhere.

Below is the list of actions as they were communicated by those responsible: [Read More]

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Calais jungle eviction: a chronology of resistance

By: dolph-l - March 5th, 2016  Filed under: Communique, News

Today [March 2nd] the southern half of the Calais ‘jungle’ enters it’s third day of eviction, in a process the authorities have now said will take 3 weeks to complete.

Here’s some of the acts of resistance that have been happening in & beyond the camp. It’s looking like it’s going to be a drawn-out process, so get busy researching, preparing and taking action now. This post will be updated as more action reports come through. [Read More]

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Nantes, France: Resistance demo against the states of emergency in solidarity with Notre-Dame-Des-Landes

By: dolph-l - March 5th, 2016  Filed under: Communique, News

No injuries, nor arrests, instead numerous facades revisited

Nearly 400 people marched in Nantes in the context of the week of resistance. The lead banner, decorated with the cartoon bird “the king and the mocking bird”, called for resistance against the states of emergency, whilst referencing Kobane to Kurdistan, Ferguson to the United States, and Notre-Dame-des-Landes in France.

300 police offices were supposed to prevent access to certain areas but they couldn’t prevent the redesigning of facades of some public buildings, banks, estate agencies and the Socialist Party office located on the path of the demonstration.

Demonstrators dressed in black, masked, and some with gas masks – with fire-extinguishers, paint and egg bombs – were able to indulge in paint and political graffiti on the walls of the city. [Read More]

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France: Recent actions against Vinci and the state in solidarity with the ZAD

By: dolph-l - February 1st, 2016  Filed under: Communique, News

This article [from Rabble] is about developments in the ZAD (‘Zone to Defend’), the site in Western France of a 9+ year occupation against the construction of the Notre-Dame-des-Landes airport by French construction giant, Vinci.

Things have been heating up in France following the decision by a Nantes court to press ahead with the eviction of the last remaining official residents on site, who refused to sell their land. The court ruled that, of the residents, the farms and three families could be evicted straight away, but gave a two month delay to the eight other families. With this legal hurdle out of the way, it looks likely that attempts will be made to evict the occupations in the coming weeks.

Attempts to build an airport have been ongoing since the 60s, with resistance taking various forms since 1972. The site has been squatted for the past nine years. Occupiers are calling on people to get ready to act on the first sign of eviction. [Read More]

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France/Finland: Direct actions from Rennes to Helsinki in solidarity with the ZAD

By: dolph-l - January 25th, 2016  Filed under: Communique

This Friday, January 22nd, at dawn, people decided to blockade the road passing through the middle of the construction site for the new Eurorennes train station and in front of the women’s prisons’ main entrance.

Bins were overturned, oil spilled and the following text plastered on the jail walls and site fences:

This morning, we’re blocking this road with help from some bins tipped over and spilled oil…

Because “the city of tomorrow”, wedged between the business district’s megalomaniac construction site that is Euro-Rennes, its future LGV high-speed rail and Europe’s largest women’s prison, represents itself exactly as dreamt up in the offices of Rennes Métropole’s project. [Read More]

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